In case of an accident, blind siders, also designated as ghost-drivers, cause deaths, injuries and considerable property damage. By wrong-way travel one should understand driving against the prescribed driving direction on a roadway, in this connection. A directional roadway, as defined here, is a roadway that is structurally separated from oncoming traffic. This kind of roadway may be found on freeways or expressways, such as enlarged German Federal highways. Wrong-way travel may be subdivided into forwards and backwards travel, the forwards travel being initiated by a wrong-way entrance or by turning around.
Detecting wrong-way travel via navigation units is not always reliably possible, since the data items of the navigation unit, such as the class and the direction of the road come too late in most cases of wrong-way travel, which means that the vehicles are then already located in the travel route envelope counter to the driving direction.
Modern motor vehicles use inertial sensors, such as acceleration sensors and yaw-rate sensors, as well as the steering angle, to determine the vehicle state, in order to implement safety and comfort systems. In addition, a multitude of motor vehicles these days have an internal GPS module, such as for a navigation system or a position finding of the motor vehicle.
Equipping motor vehicles with stereovideo cameras for detecting pedestrians is in the early stages, since they are in a position to measure precise distances and dimensions of objects.